“The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda,” Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base.

“We’ve been fighting as a result of that,” he said.

The fact of the matter is that no matter what you want reality to be, the decisions to go into Iraq allowed our military to draw Al Qaeda there, and our military then basically crushed them. Afghanistan is proving to be a huge problem because Pakistan is unreliable and outright hostile IMO.

That wasn’t his only “gaffe” – he also said this:

The new defence secretary also committed a faux pas in Afghanistan on Saturday, telling reporters the United States intends to keep 70,000 troops there until 2014.

President Barack Obama’s administration has said it plans a steady withdrawal of US forces until the Afghans can take over their own security. Panetta’s aides immediately retracted his remarks.

Maybe this too was a Freudian slip. Obama was just electioneering and Panetta just likely got reality and the narrative confused.